Presidential front-runner López Obrador has pledged to root out corruption and dampen drug violence while boosting the economy and lifting up the poor. That may win him Sunday’s election, but such goals require strong institutions and fiscal nous. His rise may bring the opposite.

(Photo: a news report I wrote in 1996 about then regional politician AMLO.)

My review of Michael Reid’s excellent “Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America.” http://reut.rs/2ySebO1

Dictators and demagogues have come and gone; progress in the region has been impressive. Still, rule of law and effective institutions still lack, Michael Reid writes in “Forgotten Continent.” That makes the next steps toward prosperity harder.

The president’s nemesis and predecessor Cristina Fernandez did not fare as well as expected in Sunday’s primary election. The peso’s strength in response shows the markets back Macri’s reforms. But Fernandez’s tally is a reminder the economic recovery is not reaching the poorest.

Ending five decades of civil war will lift the Andean nation’s economy in the long run, but place additional burdens on tight government finances in the meantime if peace is to prosper. Encouragingly, murders are down and tourism up, but it could all still go wrong.